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Written by Mmathabo Tladi
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Thursday, 11 March 2010 10:52 |
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The one bad thing about being a freelancer is your contract ending and the “no chance in hell” of it being renewed. I think many people can sympathise with the staff of SABC NEWS INTERNATIONAL who were told yesterday that their last day would be on the 31st March.The most annoying part was the constant rumours...is the division going to close or not?...the questions were endless, the speculation rife. It’s all good and well to employ people with a start and end date to their contracts but to leave them hanging till the final hour is just brutal. People with kids, bonds/rentals, car payments and all sorts of financial commitments are not happy. I saw firsthand how hurtful gossip can be, people’s faces dropping from uncertainty and their minds racing to what to do next. Finally after months of meaningless meetings the E.N.D was confirmed. Boy you could have dropped a pin on that newsroom carpet and it would have made the loudest noise. Since the recession began mass retrenchments have been the sad reality for even the most skilled of individuals. Even worse is the idea that the people’s relationship with that organisation will ever be the same again because even if they are called back they will not come back with the love or loyalty they once had for that job. Another take on gossip on a smaller scale is you notice the worst of human nature when people find some kind of satisfaction in bringing individuals down or taking liberties at the expense of others. I see it all the time and often wonder how these individuals that partake in small scale tabloid behaviour ever stop and think... “What if that was me?”
I think the channel ordeal brought out the best and worst in a lot of people ...no one is a winner when people are treated badly and their best interests such as -knowing well in advance to make a plan for the coming months - are not served.
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Written by Samantha Morrison
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Monday, 08 March 2010 22:27 |
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I was so pleased that the "Academy" honoured a lesser known director tonight: John Hughes. He penned great movies such as Breakfast Club and Ferris Buellers day off. Extreme comedy or coming of age stuff, full of angst and self-disapproval. It brings to mind St Elmo's fire... the quintessential eighties young adults film. A little old for my tender teenage years, granted, but therein lay the appeal. The montage of 80's films presented brought back some amazing memories. On the flipside, I only read "Catcher in the Rye" a year ago: a book written in the 40's/50's, and I only clapped eyes on its magnificence recently. It was such a revelation, I devoured it in a couple of days and then reluctantly returned it to Parkview library. Needless to say, it bumped something off its perch in my top ten. So now it sits comfortably with Captain Correllis Mandalin, Poisonwood Bible and anything by F Scott Fitzgerald. Unfortunately, John Hughes was honoured because he died last year. I'm not sure he was ever nominated for anything like an Oscar, but he made seriously good teenage fodder. |
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Written by Yumna Mohamed
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Friday, 05 March 2010 08:13 |
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Haiti...Has it been over-reported? The people of Haiti have been done a disservice because in a way their struggle has become overexposed and given the celebrity treatment, rendering it the fashionable "disaster flavour-of-the-month" to the piont that people are actually sick of hearing about it. But the problem is that once the cameras are put away and George Clooney moves on to his next heroic endeavour (probably to Chile, since those Latino stories are so sexy), the people of Haiti are still stuck with rebuilding their lives from scratch. I've seen all the images of Haiti that we have been bombarded with, but when Alon Skuy came to show us his work, I really looked, and what I saw was destruction that I have seen so many times before that it doesn't even register with me anymore. But in the back of my mind, in all my ignorance, it was always just imagined that whatever destruction I had just seen would magically rebuild itself after I stopped looking. But what Skuy's photos and commentary openened my eyes to is that the aftermath of such disasters is rarely temporary. I can't fathom what it would take for the Haitian people, for the victims of the 2004 Tsunami, or of the numerous genocides and wars over the decades, to recover. Another thing that I've been thinking about is Skuy's story about the prisoners who escaped after the prison collapsed in the earthquake, and how the first thing they did was form gangs and kill the wardens. The question in my mind is, what part of the human psyche were they operating on? Was it a part of human nature and the deep-set desire to exact revenge, or does it have something to do with their innate sense of criminality? Is it something within all of us, or are we conditioned by our circumstances? I am sure this question has been asked before, but I haven't found a satisfactory answer. |
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Written by Ruona Agbroko
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Monday, 08 March 2010 10:27 |
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Lesley. Anton. Margaret. Franz....Lesley. Anton. Margaret. Franz. Lesley...
I would stand in front of the full-length mirror in my hotel room in Sandton and chant these names repeatedly for days before I resumed classes at Wits. Even my reflection thought I had gone bonkers. Still, months later, I struggle with the strangeness of having to call my lecturers by name.
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Written by Aurelia Chapman
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Thursday, 04 March 2010 13:53 |
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Some people like to have a bit of a “lie-in” on Saturdays. 
Photo by:Joane Carew |
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